“Okay, do we run, or do we wait and see?”
This was nine-year-old Milton Trent, talking with his eleven-year-old big sister Velma about the colossal bass-voiced laughter from Capt. R.E. Ludlow next door.
“I'm just watching what our friends are doing,” Velma said, “and really Andrew. He's going to wait and see, and as long as he doesn't think the world is about to end with his grandfather setting off every fault line in the world, I think we're good.”
“But what if he is wrong?” Milton said.
“It's every fault line in the world, so, where are we going anyway?” Velma said.
“Oh, yeah,” he said, and sat down by her on their porch and waited.
Ten-year-old Andrew Ludlow was listening … and he liked what he was hearing.
“I did not mean to laugh uncomfortably loud, but some of you are real fools and do not need to call here again – you do not understand how your training is supposed to work in your life. If you as a captain are the leader, you know that anything you want to complain about in the unit is your responsibility – if it is going wrong, it's your fault. So if you think coming home to your family is a burden, but it is your family you are complaining about, and you want to be seen as a patriarch, the leader, the captain, everything you are complaining about is your fault. Your inability or unwillingness or both to do the work necessary to better things for the family you created is the reason you hate going home to yours.”
“Do you know why I am raising my grandchildren, Captain? Because I selected a woman who I already knew was going to not do well as a wife and mother because my body and my ego wanted her – it is my fault. Having done that while in active duty, I could not be with my two children enough to anything like compensate for that – it is my fault. The fact that they never felt enough love from either parents, and turned to drugs to comfort themselves – it is my fault. The fact that they did not know how to love their children and were set on course to abandon them as they felt they had been abandoned – it is my fault. I was the big man, the leader, the captain – since the ship went down, it's my fault!
“But since then I have acknowledged the true Captain of my soul, my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and from Him have learned how to handle my responsibilities as His steward of a second wife and a second chance at raising my children – my grandchildren! When I am afraid, I have learned that I can trust in Him – so I longer see my own family as a source of fear and shame and inadequacy – now, love can rest, rule, and abide as we all grow together. I am the chief steward and thus the leader, but I have a Leader Who knows perfectly what must be done, Who also by His Spirit speaks even to the littlest one so that we may know how we are to go in this world together.
“So, no, Captain, I was not on an eight-week vacation from which I hated to return – I am not trapped here! There were moments in the mental work I had to do when I was no longer sure of anything … but I prayed that the Lord guide me home to my beloveds, and He did! I do not despise my own family – I love them!”
“Well, that explains a lot of what is going on out in the world,” Velma said to Andrew when they talked about it later with Andrew's eleven-year-old sister Eleanor. “A lot of people have mates and kids they don't even like!”
“And it explains why we all better go thank God some more times that we are here with those who actually love us,” Andrew said.
“Yeah,” Eleanor said. “That was deep, what Papa said.”